


Domesticity

by Red



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Domestic, Established Relationship, Grocery Shopping, Growing Old Together, M/M, Massage, Nurses, Older Characters, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-X3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6763675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small collection of ficlets done for a domesticity writing meme on tumblr. The first three are older Charles/Erik from the dark/doomed timeline of DOFP: </p><p>1. Moving in together<br/>2. Exploring each other's bodies<br/>3. Hand-holding<br/>4. A sexy touch in a not necessarily sexy place (C/E, modern powered AU, both are nurses)<br/>5. Grocery shopping (C/E, from Lessons!verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. moving in together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Unforgotten/Awfullythick's prompt of "moving in together: preferably old dudes." :D

“This one’s fine,” Erik says. 

It’s the same thing he did at the last house, and the six before that. Charles may not have his powers fully back at his disposal, but he’s known Erik more than long enough to realize that—given a remote location and defensible windows—Erik is perfectly willing to ignore any structural woes. 

Sighing, Charles opens the car door. 

(At least there’s some hope of convincing Erik to actually look at properties. If Erik would have stormed off, he’d have done so already, likely during the entire “Hank brought the car by and I’m the only one who knows how to use hand controls, or really, how to drive without using metallokinesis” fiasco.)

“Just humor me,” he says, twisting to get his chair out from the back. 

Erik mutters something lowly that sounds rather like “I do little else,” but given the fact he’s getting out of the car, Charles chooses to pretend he didn’t hear it. 

This property is a vast improvement to the last six they’ve seen. Accessible houses in Montana aren’t rare per se, but whatever Erik’s tastes may run, Charles has never been a fan of the prepper aesthetic. The yard may leave much to be desired—though without their powers and responsibilities there’s little enough to do, perhaps landscaping will prove a welcome distraction—but at least there’s not bars on the living room windows. 

The concrete of the driveway is cracked and uneven under the wheels of the chair, and there’s little else than sagebrush and dirt around the small house. But as Erik walks beside him, looking around as if cataloguing the remote grounds—seemingly oblivious to Charles fishing for the key in his coat pocket—he can’t help wondering if Erik is right. If this won’t be, at least for a little while, home; if this one won’t be just fine.


	2. exploring each other's bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Turtletotem's prompt of "exploring each other's bodies."

The safehouse isn’t that old, at least by Erik’s standards. But it’s old enough to settle audibly, ducts expanding as the heat kicks in.

To be honest, Erik finds it distinctly unnerving. He has to suppress the urge to jump, the noise disembodied and strange without being able to sense the metal of the pipes, without being able to feel when the thermostat switches on. 

“Come here,” Charles murmurs, reaching for the buttons on Erik’s shirt. “Let me see you.” 

If there’s one thing to be thankful for in the strange lapse in Charles’s powers (though, all things being equal, it’s nothing so strange as the fact Charles is alive at all) it’s this, that he can remain blissfully oblivious to Erik’s moments of weakness. That he’s just as useless to the cause as Erik, that all they’re good for is keeping each other busy in a creaky Montana farmhouse. 

Erik says nothing, breathing out slowly as the tension bleeds out of him. Charles has unbuttoned his shirt, pushed it off his shoulders, and Erik doesn’t even try to use his powers on Charles’s belt. 

They’ve had sex since Charles has been back, of course—it was very nearly the first thing they did, once they got alone and once Erik recovered from the shock enough to manage it. But somehow, something about the way Charles is undressing him, something about the soft unspoken mood Charles is in… Somehow, this seems different. 

Charles takes his time getting them both naked under the covers, long enough for the heater to start really working in the bedroom. The bedside lamp is still on, Erik’s glasses and the book he was reading when Charles decided to come to bed forgotten beside it. Erik would protest, old habits dying hard—to think of the attention that could be brought to men sleeping together—but what’s it matter? Out here, in this time, in this world? He doesn’t say anything at all, as Charles urges him to lie back, as Charles pulls himself over Erik’s body. 

When he shoves off the comforter, though…

“Do you want me to freeze to death?” he grumbles. There’s enough warmth from the heater that he’s not shivering, but he’s spent enough of his life being cold. And, more importantly, in the dim lamplight, under Charles’s gaze—he feels ridiculous, uncomfortably exposed. 

“You’ll survive,” Charles says, propping himself on one elbow so he can run a hand up Erik’s side, so slow and gentle it’s all Erik can do not to pull away. 

He doesn’t. The first night they slept together, he was on Charles in seconds. He never gave himself the time to truly process Charles was back, to fully rediscover every last wonderful thing about Charles’s body. Charles’s hand roams downward, over his ribs and the slight softness of his stomach and lower still, and Erik closes his eyes. 

If this is what Charles wants—who is he to stop him? 

“I’m not sure I will,” he breathes, and Charles laughs. 

“Don’t worry,” Charles says, answering—as he’s only able, now—to the spoken alone. “I’ll get you warm, soon enough.”


	3. hand-holding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For mrkinch's prompt of "hand-holding (in your dark post-dofp 'verse, if possible)" (note: dark post-dofp old dudes is ALWAYS POSSIBLE)

“How d’you want it,” Charles asks, his voice low, “like this?” 

Briefly, Erik entertains the idea of not answering. He certainly never would’ve done so, before. Charles is wrapped up around him, still warm and sweaty from his own orgasms, the rhythmic motion of his arm starting to jostle the comforter off the bed. His grip is steady, not too rough. It’ll certainly do the job, with time. 

Which is… rather the point, Erik’s sure. He isn’t the one who went and got himself reincarnated, his body is more-or-less the same one Charles figured all out half a century ago. Charles asking isn’t about not knowing what works for Erik. Nor is it particularly new; Charles was forever asking things like that, before. Mostly to hear himself speak, since he’d always wind up reading Erik enough to do whatever Erik wanted (or, just as often, precisely the opposite) anyway. But now—

“Or this?” Charles asks, rolling to get more of his weight on Erik to pin him, fist tightening harshly around Erik’s cock. Erik grunts, not prepared for it, and Charles backs off immediately. 

“Damn,” he hisses, going back to his earlier rhythm, his grip even lighter. His face is pressed up against Erik’s shoulder, his breath shivery-hot against Erik’s skin as he sighs. “This isn’t working at all for you, is it—”

“No,” Erik says. “I mean—it’s working. It’s fine.” He can read Charles’s suspicion in the way he straightens his back, in the way his hand slackens. Fifty years on, and it’s still every day he’s reminded how terribly dreadful Charles is at reading him in return. 

Still, the words are hard to come by. Awkwardly, he reaches for the hand Charles has braced on his chest, the arm Erik’s lying on. “You asked, I probably could have said,” he grumbles as quietly as he can, holding onto Charles and hoping he won’t pull away. Erik clears his throat. “I want it the other way,” he forces himself to say. “You—it was too sudden, just now, that’s all.” 

There, he thinks. It’s probably the most he’s had to say about sex in his life, and as Charles hums—the same infuriating, smug little noise he always made back when he’d just go and root up Erik’s most private preferences and fantasies—Erik resigns himself to a future of saying even more.

“That’s all, hmm?” Charles asks, listening to himself talk as he grips Erik tight, as he starts the punishing rhythm that never fails to get Erik off hard and fast. “Going to come for me now, then, aren’t you? Come on, come for me, yeah? Come on,” he keeps rambling on. Even if he had his powers fully back, Charles would still have been fairly loud in such a remote building. Without telepathy, he’s downright obnoxious. It’s all Erik can do to grip Charles’s hand, to feel his skin flush hot as he comes. 

Charles holds him through it, nuzzling his shoulder and unerringly working his cock. Erik’s half sure he’ll let up too soon, that without his powers Charles will just try and guess that point where the overstimulation goes unpleasant. Instead, Charles draws it out, waiting for Erik to push his hand away. 

“Not so bad?” Charles asks, fumbling vaguely for some tissues. Erik winds up grabbing them with his free hand, managing to wipe up without letting Charles go. That—now, that’s something Erik’s not about to mention. He settles, making sure he’s not pinning Charles’s arm too badly. 

“No,” he admits, as Charles gets comfortable behind him. He’s not sure whether or not Charles heard him, though. Charles winds up saying nothing in response, and it’s not long at all before he dozes off.

Erik closes his eyes, letting his thoughts drift, waiting for his mind to fall alongside Charles’s into sleep. It’s warm in their bed, the cheap store-brand linens Charles had initially baulked at soft and comfortable. And though he’d never admit it—not even now, not even when he’s already exposing himself so much more to Charles than he ever did before—he’s quite content just like this. Charles’s chest rising and falling against his back, Charles’s left arm heavy around him, Charles’s hand holding his tightly, even in sleep. 

But contentment alone won’t bring rest. The wind blows hard over the steppe, and the roof creaks softly now and then, as it’s always done. Erik gives up on sleeping, and watches the moonlight and the shadows of the lone tree in their backyard, a constant tangle of motion drawn over the odd terrain of the popcorn ceiling. He listens to Charles breathe, to the way he snores sometimes, quietly. 

When Charles half-wakes to reposition, hours later, Erik’s still awake. He keeps his eyes closed and holds as still as he can. Somehow he manages not to make a sound when Charles lets go of his hand, and turns away.


	4. a sexy touch...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Thea's prompt of "a sexy touch in a not necessarily sexy place." This hails the end of the dark-post-DOFP old dudes! Modern-day AU where Charles and Erik are both nurses (look, indulge me).

Erik’s first instinct when Charles had offered was to say no. 

It’s absurd, isn’t it? Charles works just as hard as Erik, for hours just as long and thankless. Charles just got off-shift, same as Erik, and has a commute far longer and far more less enjoyable than Erik’s fifteen minutes on a motorcycle. Really, if anyone is getting a massage here, shouldn’t it be the guy who spent forty-five minutes on a crowded train? 

But the second Charles had been in-range enough to read Erik’s discomfort—despite how well Erik had been shielding—it was a lost cause. 

«Erik! Take some ibuprofen already,» Charles had sent, «I’ll be home in thirty.»

Begrudgingly, Erik had taken the pills before falling into bed. He was usually the type to just suffer things out. Any pain sustained from hauling some thankless human up in bed was just plain old part of the job. 

But he was tired, too tired by far to stick to his convictions in the face of Charles’s relentless attention. Soon enough, Charles was home and offering to work the knots out of Erik’s lower back.

“All right, scoot over,” Charles cajoles, wheeling up alongside the bed. He’s still in his brightly-colored scrubs, a stupidly cheerful grin on his face. Erik huffs, narrowing his eyes. 

“You’re not getting up here in those.” Babies or not, _all_ patients are nothing more than a mass of germs and complaints. 

Charles rolls his eyes, but starts stripping down all the same. “I don’t know why you got into this at all, sometimes,” he says, balling up his scrubs and somehow managing to successfully lob them into the hamper. Erik frowns, trying not to look too impressed. 

“The four-day weekends,” he deadpans. Charles transfers into bed, and gets comfortable by Erik’s side. 

“Oh, of course,” he says. Erik’s not stupid, he strips at the door, so he’s already naked beneath the sheets. Charles spans his hands over Erik’s lower back, and digs his thumbs down either side of his spine, pressing in unerringly hard right at the knots. 

Erik hisses out a breath, and tries not to curse. 

“Mm, I thought so,” Charles says to himself, mercilessly assaulting Erik’s back. “I’d ask you how the real patients are these days, but I suppose I can feel the answer.” 

“Fuck. Ow. If you learned this from your massage therapist, I’m reporting him to state,” Erik complains, before submitting under the brutal assault of Charles’s sadistic urges. “And how are the little angels?” 

Erik isn’t an idiot, like some nurses. Even if it weren’t for Charles, he’d know the NICU is just as real as anywhere else in any hospital. There’s no hierarchy, like some nurses like to think. ICU nurses aren’t any better than the guys in ER or in rehab. Same shit, different-sized piles, as one of his coworkers puts it. All the same, it’s fun to needle Charles, even if there’s no way Erik would ever put up with _parents_. 

“Smaller every day,” Charles says, sounding cheerful enough even if that’s the truth. Erik hums in agreement, but says no more. They’ve already gone _well_ past the no-shop-talk-in-bed rule. 

Charles keeps working on his back, long enough to get the muscles to ease up. He moves down to work on Erik’s ass a while, which could have been sexy if that wasn’t where Erik held ninety percent of his tension and if Charles wasn’t digging his thumbs in hard enough to bruise. And once that eases up, Charles works on his thighs, and once they’re eased up—

Well, Charles at least has an iota of kindness left in his soul after seven years of bedside nursing. He doesn’t jam his elbow into the back of Erik’s knee like he’s out for state secrets (seriously, did Charles learn all these moves from his massage therapist or from playing wheelchair rugby?), but what he does do is almost more weird. 

Apparently, now that he’s got somewhere that’s not entirely knots… Charles is keen to switch up the mood.

Which means, he’s stroking Erik very sensually. 

On the back of his knees. 

“Seriously?” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Charles murmurs, flicking his fingers gently in the hollow of Erik’s knee. It’s a good thing Erik’s never been ticklish. 

“My knees,” he says, his face still buried against his arms from earlier, when he was trying not to scream. 

“Your popliteal fossa,” Charles corrects, and Erik kicks at him just out of principle. 

“You know, you have to speak English to real patients,” he says. Charles laughs, and keeps running his fingers back and forth from Erik’s calves to be back of his thigh, slow and lingering. 

Erik swallows, feeling his face get warm. It’s not weird he’s getting aroused. It’s just—been a while. They’ve both been working a lot lately. Overtime and meetings and education days and all that. Erik keeps finding himself in charge, no matter how many fights he picks with the idiots from surgery. Anyway, how else are they going to pay off the condo? He clears his throat. “Anyway, what do you know about popliteal fossae? Your patients don’t even have kneecaps.” 

Charles’s surprise and amusement flares through their connection, bright and perfect. Erik smiles against his arms. Five years and a telepath for a partner, and Erik can still get a bit of surprise in, now and then. 

“Well. For that, my darling,” Charles says, pulling at his hip, urging him to roll over, “I think you earned yourself something a little more risqué.”


	5. grocery shopping (& forehead-touching)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, for Pearlo: a fill for the twin prompts of "grocery shopping" and "forehead-touching." For some reason, the combo wound up with an early-relationship Lessons!verse Charles and Erik? 
> 
> (warnings for agoraphobia/PTSD/anxiety issues, and--as usual--for Erik not being super friendly to his own brain)

There’s no use arguing over it, Erik tells himself. He pushes the cart down another useless aisle—crackers and chips, the sign reads; _crisps_ , Charles habitually corrects—and attempts not to dwell too loudly on his misgivings. 

He hates shopping. If it were him, he’d just order everything online. _You can get that shipped to your door_ , he wants to say, with every box of tea Charles picks up. _Why are you reading the packaging? Who even reads the packaging? It’s all useless copy anyway, you could read actual reviews online, who even does this—_

Breathing out heavily, Erik concentrates on the metal of the shopping cart, trying to clear his mind. Charles has gone well ahead of him, and blessedly seems engrossed with a box of pita crackers. 

_Or are they called crisps_ , Erik finds himself wondering. He drums aimlessly on the handle of the cart, and attempts to let that particular absurd worry go. He’s not expected to know what they’re called. He’s managing to walk up and down every damn aisle of a crowded (and disingenuously named) Safeway with his boyfriend. Who the hell cares what they’re called? They’re fucking over-baked, over-priced, over-packaged crumbs of fucking bread—

“Erik?” 

He startles, clenching the handle of the cart tighter still. Charles is beside him now, and Erik flails out with his powers reflexively, searching, sure he’s _done_ something. Sure he’s fucked something up already. 

But everything seems to be where it was, minutes ago, when he last swept the store. 

“Erik,” Charles repeats, and Erik has to shake himself again. When he looks back down at Charles, it’s almost bewildering. He can’t remember when Charles put down the pita crisps, or if Charles had come to him or he had gone to Charles, or what the fuck he did to make Charles look so very upset. 

“Shit,” is all he can think of saying. He lets go of the shopping cart, his hands aching and clammy. “Sorry. I’m fine. Let’s keep going.” 

“Don’t,” Charles says. His voice is just sharp enough to cut through the fog in Erik’s mind, to stop him mid-action when about to turn all his attention back to the comforting metal of the cart. “Please. Come here, instead.” 

Erik frowns, glancing around them. But the aisle is utterly empty, and when he casts out, all the other carts and baskets are suspiciously distant. 

“A few moments won’t matter,” Charles promises, like he’s not risking his career by mind-controlling the entire afternoon crowd of a busy grocery store. “It’s only thirty-eight people in the whole store, staff included. And only two of them were even distantly interested in crisps. Now, please,” he says. 

It’s tempting to argue, to point out how reckless Charles is being. But, while they may not have been together long, Erik gets the feeling it’ll be quicker to just go along with whatever it is Charles has planned. Carefully, his legs still a bit shaky, he gets down on his knees by Charles’s chair. 

The moment he does, Charles is reaching out for him—brushing his forehead like he’s brushing back Erik’s hair, even if it’s been years since Erik’s had much more than a buzzcut. 

“My darling,” Charles whispers, stroking his fingers back, smoothing against the grain of Erik’s hair. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I didn’t know. I didn’t think—” 

“You shouldn’t _have_ to—” 

“Hush,” Charles interrupts again, and it should be galling, but the steady scratch of Charles’s nails against his scalp is sending shivery contentment all though Erik’s blood. 

“It’s fine,” he says, his voice low and perfect. “You’re fine.” 

_I’m not, though_ , Erik wants to say. But he feels heavy, almost sedated; the last vestiges of panic dissipating and the weight of Charles’s mind holding him still. 

“It’s okay,” Charles murmurs, as he brushes his forehead again. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
